The rambunctious Tanner Hall, the forefather of halfpipe skiing with seven X Games gold medals, returned to the snowy ditch last weekend for The North Face Freeski Open of New Zealand. Although the finals were called for weather after the first run, the 28-year-old Hall claimed the win in his first halfpipe comp after nearly four years absence due to injury. It was the first step in Hall’s audacious push for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In the last Hall-free four years, halfpipe skiing has seen the emergence of a young cadre of halfpipe rippers – like Aspen’s Torin Yater Wallace and Kiwi Jossi Wells.

But Hall seems undaunted by the teens who could foul his comeback after blowing both his knees in a 2009 backcountry film shoot. The outspoken skier – his nearly 19,000 Twitter followers must endure ALL CAPS TWEETS, which sort of exemplify his larger-than-life, Rasta-elevating persona – will have to best teenagers who have pushed pipe skiing to new levels in the last few years if he plans to make the U.S. Freeskiing Team for 2014. It’s a daunting task, but Hall’s win in NZ certainly puts him on track.

The win Down Under came only days after Red Bull dropped their sponsorship of Hall after an 11-year partnership. In a post-win interview Hall, who has never held his tongue, got a dig on his former ally with a scathing “Look at me now Red Bull.”

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